Border Patrol agent was shot in drug corridor

Oct. 4, 2012
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Lt. Floyd Gregory of the Cochise County Sheriff's Office, stands on the other side of the a hill Wednesday from where U.S. Border Patrol agent Nicholas Ivie was shot and killed near Bisbee, Ariz. / By Michael Schennum, The Arizona Republic

by Daniel Gonzalez and Ronald J. Hansen, The Arizona Republic

by Daniel Gonzalez and Ronald J. Hansen, The Arizona Republic

BISBEE, Ariz. -- From a distance, the road looks more like a trail snaking up a hillside toward a notch at the far end of a mountain range, east of this former mining town in southern Arizona.

It was just over that hill that Nicholas Ivie and two other Border Patrol agents were responding to a tripped ground sensor early Tuesday when someone started shooting at them, killing Ivie and wounding one of the other agents.

On Wednesday, the Border Patrol continued to seal off the area of the shooting, about 6 miles east of Bisbee. Ariz., and just north of the U.S.-Mexican line, as dozens of agents scoured the rugged, mountainous terrain for evidence related to the shooting.

U.S. and Mexican authorities declined to comment Wednesday on media reports that two shooting suspects had been arrested in Mexico.

Meanwhile, the wounded agent was released from the hospital, but spokesman Victor Brabble of U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the agency is still declining to identify him out of privacy concerns.

So far, federal authorities investigating the attack are saying only that the agents were walking up the hill around 1:33 a.m. MST when they were fired upon.

But interviews with local and federal law-enforcement officials reveal that the area is at the center of a major drug-smuggling corridor that, despite years of beefed-up border security from the federal government, has continued.

"It's been an active corridor for years," said Rodney Rothrock, interim Cochise County sheriff, adding that the corridor stretches more than 80 miles from west of Bisbee all the way east to the New Mexico line.

In between, criminal smuggling organizations transport tons of marijuana, either in homemade backpacks made from burlap sacks or pickup trucks and SUVs. The smugglers constantly change their routes to avoid detection.

"It fluctuates," Rothrock said. "Smugglers are readily adaptable, and if they start sensing or becoming aware of increased efforts to detect and apprehend them in one area, they will simply start operating in another."

Ramona Sanchez, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Phoenix, said the area is a "hotbed" for drug smuggling by the Sinaloa cartel and other independent organizations.

"Because of its proximity to the border, it allows the smuggler to make a quick drop in a short period of time, anywhere from five to 10 minutes of exposure before dropping it off. And then, he makes his connection to the transporter, who drives it to the stash house," Sanchez said.

Smugglers then head back to Mexico to pick up more loads.

"It's like a revolving door," she said.

The main area for drug smuggling in the state is the Nogales-Yuma corridor in western Arizona, she said. But the Naco, Ariz., area is a significant spot for the Sinaloa cartel.

"Because of its terrain, it's a very target-rich area for drug smugglers. They have the advantage here," she said.

Brabble said that in the past year, arrests in the eastern corridor of Arizona are down 27% and marijuana seizures are down 4%. Brabble said the declines are because of stepped-up enforcement.

Lt. Floyd Gregory, who oversees the Cochise County Sheriff's Office narcotics unit, said that although smuggling routes change, the area where the shooting occurred has been a hot spot for months. Smugglers may have figured out that the area is between two Border Patrol stations, the one to the west in Naco and the one to the east in Douglas, Ariz., creating a gap in coverage.

"We just call it the gray area," Gregory said.

Flanked by two mountain ranges, the site of the shooting lies near a natural pass that leads from the border north to Arizona 80.

In the past, the area was a major route for illegal immigrants who left behind piles of discarded clothing, water jugs and other debris. But most of the illegal-immigrant traffic has dried up. What remains is drug smuggling.

They use the canyon to smuggle loads of marijuana from the border north to Arizona 80, where it is quickly loaded into vehicles and transported to stash houses in Douglas, Tucson or other communities, Gregory said.

Sometimes, the smugglers use pickup trucks or SUVs loaded with cellophane-wrapped bricks of marijuana to get to the highway. But more commonly, the marijuana bricks are stuffed inside homemade burlap backpacks and trekked north through the desert. The backpacks weigh anywhere from 40 to 80 pounds, he said.

Sometimes one smuggler is designated to carry only food and water for the rest of the group, he said.

In the past, Gregory said these human smuggling "mules" traveled in groups of as many as 15 people. But more recently, law-enforcement officials are encountering smaller groups of two to four mules. That way, the groups are harder to detect and smuggling organizations can reduce their losses if the mules are caught.

Authorities have noticed that smugglers are increasingly armed and more brazen, Gregory said.

"We've had intel that the higher-ups have told their people to do whatever it takes: 'We are not going to lose a load at any cost,' " Gregory said.

However, neither Gregory nor Rothrock could recall recent encounters between officers and smugglers in Cochise County that turned violent. In March 2010, Robert Krentz was found shot dead on his ranch in another part of Cochise County northeast of Douglas. His killing remains unsolved.

In December 2010, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed during a shootout north of Nogales, near Rio Rico in Santa Cruz County, roughly 70 miles west of Bisbee. At least two assault weapons found at the scene of the agent's killing were part of a flawed Arizona gun-tracking case known as Operation Fast and Furious. One suspect has been in custody since the shooting, and another was arrested in September; three remain fugitives.

Officials allege that Terry's killers were not drug smugglers but part of a "rip crew" of bandits who prey on smugglers and illegal immigrants along the border. Cochise County sheriff's officials say they haven't seen evidence of rip crews operating in the area where Ivie was slain.

During a press conference Tuesday, James Turgal, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Phoenix office, refused to discuss possible links between the two Border Patrol shootings.

But in general, Rothrock said, smugglers try to avoid law-enforcement officers because they don't want to draw attention to smuggling routes.

"I think the smugglers are motivated to avoid contact with law enforcement. But if one area becomes inconvenient for them, they've got the whole border to operate in," he said.

Driving south of Bisbee, Gregory turned his pickup onto a dirt road known as Rifle Range Road that leads to an area near the shooting site. Along the way, he pointed out the rugged terrain covered with mesquite trees, ocotillo, sage and other desert scrub.

Smugglers typically travel at night, taking advantage of nights when the moon is full, Gregory said. On Tuesday, the night of the shooting, the moon was nearly full.

Deep washes in the area also allow smugglers to travel during the day with little chance of being seen, he said.

"We could be standing here in broad daylight, and they could be walking right by us," Gregory said, pointing at a wash in the distance.

It is unknown who triggered the sensor on the hillside where the shooting occurred. But Gregory said smugglers typically rely on spotters perched on the tops of mountain ranges to help get their loads through without being detected.

The spotters often are better equipped than U.S. law-enforcement officers, using drug revenue to purchase night-vision goggles, spotting scopes, binoculars, even two-way radios with military-grade encryption, he said.

Gregory pointed to an area high on the mountain range where spotters typically build small walls out of stones to hide behind.

From below, it is almost impossible to see them, even with night-vision goggles that detect heat.

"The rocks give off heat, so unless they are moving, we only see the heat source," Gregory said.